We arrive in Buenos Aires at 11am on Thursday 22nd Oct. It's sunny but much colder than Iguazu! We'll be here for a few days so we have booked a studio apartment in Palermo which is supposed to be the coolest part of town to stay in.
Buenos Aires is home to the tango, the Boca juniors, Evita and some of the best steak houses in Argentina. We wanted to get to know the city a bit so we went on two free walking tours, at 5pm Friday and 11am Saturday. We learnt about the political history of Argentina which has varied from democratically elected but corrupt politicians and presidents to dictatorships as recently as the 70/80s, the effect of the Falklands war (a propaganda stunt staged by a president trying to gain popularity) and the "dirty war" from 1976-1982 during which over 30,000 young Argentinians disappeared and were murdered by order of the dictator in power. Our guide told us that ppl from BA are known as Portenos and are generally quite snobby. The buildings look European and were mostly styled on Parisian architecture from the early 1900's. We also learnt about Evita, Argentinas 1st lady from 1946-1952 who was both loved and hated and whose body was kidnapped and moved several times before finally being buried! The tours were about 2 hours each and really interesting.
We're in BA on a strange weekend - not only is it the presidential election on Sunday, which means that places aren't serving alcohol from Saturday night, but also Argentina are in the RWC semi finals against Australia. We went to watch it at a bar on Armenia Sq - Argentina made so many mistakes and eventually lost which was a real shame, we were hoping to see them in the final whilst we're here! We found a cool burger place called Burger Joint (I think) in Palermo for lunch afterwards and then went for a wander. It's a really cool
Neighbourhood and reminds us both of Williamsburg in NYC. Although we went out for dinner most nights we never had a big night out in BA - a combo of it being a quiet wkend due to the election and us being too full after all the steak! We had a funny FaceTime conversation with Rocky and Lorna one night, was nice to see their faces!
We've been eating so much and doing so little exercise that we decided to go for a short run and workout one morning to the botanical gardens. The park is full of dog walkers and ppl on roller skates and the botanical gardens are full of rose bushes, it's really pretty. The workout was short but we were both sooo achy the next day!

The food! Argentina is best known for its steak but the huge influx of Italian migrants in the 20th century had a big impact on the food and most places have pizza and pasta listed under their specialties as well. BA is home to some of the countries best parillas (grilled meat) houses, these are the ones we tried:
La Cabrera - on Spoonys recommendation. One of the best parillas in the city does a steak happy hour between 7-8pm every day giving 40% off everything! We had to try it and went for dinner on our first day in BA. The doors open at 7, we were ushered in and out order taken quickly as you only have an hour. Bife de Chorizo is the prime cut which Ben got and I went for Bife de Lomo. Ben ordered a side of chips which turned out to be totally unnecessary as they serve the steaks with a selection of small sides including Swede and carrot mash, grilled veggies, roast onions and dips. It was soooo good. We couldn't believe how much food there was and that we got 40% off the wine too!
Don Julio - another highly rated parilla in Palermo. We went at 10pm on Saturday night (after drinking a bottle of rum and numerous games of heads up at the flat!) and the place was packed but we got a table upstairs. The steaks were huge, this time we had to order sides but we couldn't finish everything we ordered because the portions were so big! Delicious steak although Ben discovered he doesn't like T-bone.
Calero de Soho- another Palermo parilla! I ordered 1/2 entrana meat which turned out to be skirt steak. It was a huge piece of meat for a 1/2 portion! Chewy but flavoursome. The waiters gave us a shot of Legui after dinner which is an orange and herb flavoured liquor - we did it in one before being told by the waiter it's supposed to be sipped! Oops.

From BA we are flying to El Calafate on Monday 26th for our first taste of Patagonia!